Chinese symbol for "brotherhood"

[chefboy1313]

Hi, I am trying to find out the accurate symbol for "brotherhood" in the sense of siblings. Me and my 3 brothers want to get tattoos and we are not sure if what we are seeing on the Internet is accurate. Here is what I found:

http://chineseculture.about.com/library/symbol/blcc_brotherhood.htm

Can someone check out this link and tell me if this is an accurate meaning of what I am looking for? Thank you.

[muyongshi]

I would personally go with just 兄弟 (brothers) as in China the relationship between siblings is highly regarded and unless you mean like the brotherhood of thieves, just saying 兄弟 would imply the closeness and bond that you and your siblings have together.

[mythia]

Hey there chefboy, this sounds pretty cool, but the translation is a literal one, although it's a good word, it's not *manly* enough if you know what I mean. And especially if you want to get one character for each of you brothers, 兄弟 (which is COOL) would be two characters short. I'd go with 兄弟情深 or 手足情深. Below I will give a literal translation of the characters involved.

兄：elder brother

弟：younger brother

情：affections, bond

深：deep, profound

手：hand

足：leg

Yes, there's Classical Chinese literature referring brothers to hands of legs of a human body, figuratively meaning that they are unseparatable (is it a word? sorry my English is lame...).

谊：friendship

[SChinFChin]

Yes, there's Classical Chinese literature referring brothers to hands of legs of a human body, figuratively meaning that they are unseparatable (is it a word? sorry my English is lame

The English is "inseparable".

And you're talking about the Chinese saying 兄弟如手足, right??

[skylee]

Which is followed by, of course, "夫妻如衣服".

[mythia]

@Frank: true true, thanks for correcting me.

@skylee:I don't know when 夫妻如衣服 came about:mrgreen: but both make sense although somebody would argue with you that 手足可以断，衣服不能换。

[SChinFChin]

So it seems the proverb "兄弟如手足" to be the closest to expressing "brotherhood" than the the others cited, particularly the one actually cited in the original post.